DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Incredible new health secrets linked to not being able to hold your drink or ‘wine blush’ – including the cancer you’re more at risk of and what it means for your waistline

Heavy drinker or a bit of a lightweight (like me)? Blame your genes. A study published last week shows just how big an impact our genes have on our ability to tolerate alcohol, and why some people can drink so much more than others without feeling the effects, at least in the short term.

Like most people in Britain I have an alcoholic drink at least once a week, but for me it’s a love-hate relationship.

Although I’ve never been a big drinker – I flush and get migraines if I drink too much – I enjoy the occasional glass of red wine with a meal, and sometimes even more on a night out.

Nowadays, however, I get drunk faster and drink less alcohol than I used to, and the hangovers are much, much worse. This isn’t surprising, since most of us become more sensitive to alcohol as we get older.

This is partly because our livers no longer work as well as they used to, but also because we tend to lose muscle and put on more fat as we age. Fat, unlike muscle, is not very good at absorbing alcohol. But why do some people, regardless of their age, handle alcohol much better?

Gender plays a role: men can normally drink more alcohol than women, mainly because we are bigger and tend to have more muscles. But a lot of it is also down to the luck of genetic attraction.

Convincing evidence for this has emerged from research by the University of California San Diego School of Medicine in America.

Researchers explored this question by examining data collected from more than 3 million people by genetics company 23andMe (one of the first commercial companies to analyze your DNA from a saliva sample and provide information about your genes, as well as your ancestors).

I had my DNA analyzed and discovered that my ancestors are mainly European, with a hint of Middle Eastern. I had also inherited a surprising amount of genes from a distant Neanderthal ancestor (apparently twice as many as normal), and some research suggests this could be beneficial for my immune system.

In addition to your origins, you also learn a lot about your health, such as whether you are more likely to gain weight or whether you have genes that make you particularly vulnerable to dementia (the answer to both questions in my case is: ‘No’).

Of course, such an analysis is not infallible; for example, we don’t know all the genes associated with weight gain, and there’s also the fact that the way you live can change the way your genes are expressed. Still, the new research showed that some people had a particular set of genes that caused them to experience many unpleasant side effects, including nausea and flushing, even when they drank even a modest amount of alcohol, the researchers wrote last month in eBioMedicine. .

Normally, when you drink booze, the alcohol (or ethanol) in your drink is converted by your body into a toxic substance called acetaldehyde. This in turn is converted into carbon dioxide and water, which leaves your body through your breath or urine.

If you have genes that quickly convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, or if you lack genes that make an enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde, you will get a build-up of this toxic substance, and therefore you will quickly feel sick if you drink a lot. It’s not surprising that people like me, who have these genes, tend to drink less than others because of the unpleasant short-term effects.

According to this study, we don’t like whiskey very much and are more prone to flushing and ‘wine headaches’. Because our genes ensure that we drink less, the researchers discovered that we are less likely to develop liver disease or depression; we also have lower blood pressure, less risk of heart disease, and suffer fewer fractures than normal (probably because we don’t fall as often).

But it’s not all good news. To their surprise, the researchers also found that people whose genes make them intolerant to alcohol have a higher risk of skin cancer and are more likely to be emotional eaters (when you eat to help you cope with your feelings, rather than than just because you are hungry) and there is also a greater chance that you are nearsighted.

The researchers are currently trying to unravel these unlikely connections.

As for me, for a long time I tried to convince myself that the advantages of drinking, such as being social and enjoying the temporary improvement in mood, outweigh the following disadvantages (grumbling and headaches).

Then, a few months ago, I decided to try to stop drinking during the week altogether.

I’ve found it’s relatively easy to stick to this resolution, so I’m going to try to make it permanent. I’ll let you know how I’m doing.

I’m not very good at small talk, so I sometimes struggle when talking to strangers. I also tend to avoid talking about topics like politics with someone I just met, in case things turn out badly.

But new research published in the journal Psychological Science suggests I’m being too cautious and missing out.

When volunteers were asked to discuss topics like abortion and climate change with people who held very different views without being uncomfortable, they said they found the conversations eye-opening.

And volunteers said they enjoyed working with someone whose views they strongly disagreed with, which is encouraging.

The “unhealthy” foods I now wish I had eaten for years

In medical school in the 1980s, we were taught that the main reason our patients were overweight and at risk for heart disease was that they ate too much saturated fat (found in foods like milk, cheese, and butter).

One consultant told us that ‘eating saturated fat will clog the arteries as much as pouring lard down the drain will clog the sink.’

Since then, there have been countless studies that undermine this message – and yet this is still the advice you’re likely to hear from the NHS.

We also used to be told to avoid cholesterol-rich foods like eggs and limit them to no more than once a week. Supermarkets were soon filled to the brim with ‘cholesterol-free’ foods.

Yet this turns out to be nonsense and the effects of the cholesterol we eat on the concentrations in our blood are very small.

In a recent study (presented at the American College of Cardiology conference), people who were asked to eat twelve eggs a week for four months showed no measurable changes in their cholesterol levels compared to those who ate just two eggs a week or less.

And it appears that the dangers of cholesterol have been seriously exaggerated. For a long time, we were told that because eating saturated fat raises levels of “bad” or LDL cholesterol—which it does—higher levels of LDL inevitably lead to heart disease. But that is not true.

A study published last month in BMJ Open, which looked at data from more than 170,000 middle-aged patients, found that those with higher-than-recommended LDL levels actually had a lower risk of dying from a heart attack than those whose LDL levels were low. at or below recommended levels. This is something that has been discovered in other research.

Rather than LDL, the ratio of total cholesterol to your HDL score is a better predictor of mortality. In fact, we need cholesterol to make hormones like estrogen and testosterone; it is also an essential part of cell membranes.

So these days I eat eggs most mornings. I also like to eat butter, full-fat Greek yogurt and whole milk. I cook with olive oil and eat a lot of oily fish.

I only wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that decades of eating low-fat foods would not provide me with any protection later in life.